Bicol Express is a popular dish from Bicol Region of the Philippines. According to some Bicolanos, the original Bicol Express has less coconut or none at all and has more "siling labuyo" or hot chili. It is said that you have to run as fast as its namesake train for a glass of water after having a bite of the dish.

Bicol Region is known for its dishes cooked in coconut milk and highlighted by hot chili peppers or siling labuyo in our term. I have learned cooking bicol express through recipe books and as I have observed, there's a lot of version in cooking bicol express. Here's one of its version on how to cook bicol express.


Ingredients:

1/2 kg pork thinly sliced
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon Chopped garlic
1 head chopped onions
2 cups seeded and sliced hot chili pepper(siling Labuyo)
2-3 teaspoon of Bagoong alamang
1 cup of thick Coconut milk
2 cups thin coconut milk
2 cups Fresh long green chillies sliced lengthwise
salt to taste

Cooking Procedure:

1. Saute garlic in hot oil. Add onions and cook until translucent.
2. Add in the sliced pork. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add bagoong alamang and chopped hot chilli(siling labuyo). Stir until the pork is completely covered by the mixture.
4. Pour in thin coconut milk and simmer for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the thick coconut milk and the sliced hot long green chili and bring to a boil.
5. Continue cooking for about 20 minutes or until half of the liquid has evaporated.
6. Add salt if necessary.

Note: You can decrease or increase the amount of siling labuyo according to your taste.

Adobo is a Spanish term for dressing or seasoning. However, here in the Philippines, Adobo is a recipe name which is a popular dish. Pork and chicken are two popular types of adobo.

According to history, when the Spanish invaded the Philippines, they encountered the cooking process of the Filipinos that involved stewing with vinegar. This kind of cooking method is a way to preserve the meat at once because there was no cold storage at that time yet. Spanish then referred the method as Adobo which is the Spanish word for marinade. Eventhough it has a name taken from the Spanish, the cooking method is originally of the Philippines.

Adobo has been the favorite "baon" of some Filipino mountaineers and travelers because of its long shelf-life. It keeps well without refrigeration because of the vinegar(one of its primary ingredient which holds back the growth of bacteria).

Adobo varies from regions as I have observed. In Batangas, their adobo is different from the adobo that I used to cook. When I was in Cebu, their adobo is also different since they do not use soy sauce.

So, let us learn how to cook adobo, this is the most common method that I have learned from my grand mother.


Ingredients

1 kilo pork liempo, cubed
2 tablespoon garlic, crushed
3 tablespoon soy sauce
2 dried bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorn
1/3 cup vinegar
water
salt to taste


Cooking Procedure:

1. Combine the first three ingredients, pork liempo, garlic and soy sauce. Marinate for an hour.

2. In a large pot, cook the marinated pork liempo for 3-5 minutes.

3. If the mixture turns dry, add about 1/2 cup of water. Simmer covered until completely tender.

4. Add pepper corn, dried bay leaves and vinegar. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Taste and add salt if needed.

6. Serve hot with rice.


If you like this recipe, kindly share this to your friends.

Humba recipe is a very common dish in the southern part of the Philippines and one of the comfort foods of every Filipino household. During my child days, my late grand mother would always cook Humba for us and I really love her version of cooking it.

Humba is somehow similar to the famous pork adobo in terms of appearance. It uses the same basic ingredients of pork adobo, however there are additional ingredients added for it to have a different taste.

Based on the information gathered, humba is from Chinese origin, the rump of ham or pork cooked with garlic, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and other spices.

Pork humba has a lot of variations from household to household. And I will be sharing one of those variations using Piña as an additional ingredients.

Ingredients:

1/2 Kilo Pork liempo, cut into chunks
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 head onion, diced
1 tbsp cooking oil
2 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp cane vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp tausi(salted black beans)
1 piece laurel leaf
1 tsp whole paminta
1 cup pineapple chunks
1 cup pineapple juice(syrup from pineapple chunks)

Procedure:

1. Preheat pan with oil, cook pork liempo until it turns brown.

2. Add onion and garlic and let it stay for a while or until the onion turns transparent.

3. Pour in soy sauce together with laurel leaf and whole paminta.

4. Add pineapple juice and simmer over medium heat until pork is tender. Add water if needed then bring to a boil.

5. Add vinegar, salted black beans and sugar. Simmer for 4 minutes.

6. Add the pineapple chunks, mix and allow to simmer for 3 minutes.

7. Serve warm and enjoy.

This version of pork humba is coming from Visayas and Mindanao. Other version includes dried banana blossoms which my late grand mother used to cook for us. You can replace pineapple chunks with dried banana blossoms if you want. On the other hand, Luzon's version of humba does not have salted black beans, instead they use bananas or toasted bread.

Image Source: Del Monte Recipe Guide

Kare-Kare is one of the favorite foods of Filipinos. It is a classic Filipino food that composes of vegetables, stewed meat in a thick sauce made from peanut and is not complete without the shrimp paste.

There are a lot of variations in cooking Kare-Kare and one of it is the Kare-Kare recipe that I am going to share to you. I prefer using pork pata instead of ox tail and ox tripe.

Kare-kare Ingredients:

1 1/2 Kilo pork pata
4-5 pieces head of pechay
1 sachet of Mama Sita Kare-kare peanut sauce mix dissolve in 1 cup water
3 medium size eggplant, cut into cubes
1 bundle of string beans (sitaw) cut
3 table spoon Lady's Choice Creamy Peanut Butter
1 medium size of banana bud, quarter cut
4 head garlic, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
1 pork cube
2 cups water
cooking oil
salt
sauted shrimp paste

Procedure:

1. Let's start with the veggies, make sure to wash your vegetables before cooking. Put a little amount of cooking oil in a pan. Fry eggplant until it turned brown both sides. Set aside.

2. Wash pork leg properly then put it in a large pan. Put half of the onions and half of the garlic. Sprinkle a little salt enough to give the pork some taste. Cover pan and DON'T put water. Cook for about 5 minutes or until pork is cooked with its own juice.

3. Put 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Add water if necessary. Add pork cube and simmer for about 10 minutes or until pork is tender. Separate pork from broth. Remove all scum that was formed out from the broth. Set aside.

4. Saute garlic and onion. Add string beans, banana bud, and pechay. Cook for 2 minutes then add in pork leg. Stir cook for another 2 minutes. Pour in pork broth and let it simmer for 3 minutes. Add kare-kare mix solution and 3 table spoon of creamy peanut butter. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add fried eggplant and cook for about 2 minutes or until vegetable are cooked.

5. Serve with sauteed shrimp paste.

Enjoy your kare-kare!!! =)

Siomai or Shumai is a traditional Chinese dumpling and is also known as pork dumpling. There are a lot of variations on its ingredients since others are modifying it according to their taste and sometimes according to the availability of the ingredients. Though Siomai is a Chinese food, we can't deny the fact that this food has made its way to the heart of the Filipino’s. We can see a lot of stalls in the streets, malls, schools and restaurants who are serving this food.

This Siomai recipe is more on a Cantonese variation. Cantonese Siomai is basically made of ground pork, minced mushrooms, and shrimps, thus it sometimes known as pork and mushroom dumpling.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 lbs ground pork
1 1/2 cups white mushroom, minced
1 cup shrimp, minced
2 cups water chestnuts(singkamas), minced
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 cup onion, minced
1 cup carrots, minced
1/4 cup scallions, minced
2 tsp salt
1 piece egg
5 tbsp sesame oil
1 pack wanton or siomai wrapper

Chili Paste
1/8 kilo chilies (Siling Labuyo)
3 tbsp cooking oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

Cooking Procedure:

1. Combine all the ingredients except for the chili paste ingredients and the wanton. Mix until well blended.

2. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of mixture in the center of each wanton wrapper. Press down gently to make sure there's no air.

3. Press wrapper up and around all the sides of the siomai leaving the center open.

4. Grease steamer plate and arrange siomai that won't stick with each other. Steam for 15 to 20 minutes on medium heat. Be careful not to overcook so siomai would not end up too dry. If you don't like your siomai to be steamed, you can dip fry it, just don't overcook.

5. Serve with calamansi/soy sauce dip and chili garlic paste.


Chili Paste Preparation:

1. Combine chopped chilies and minced garlic, then simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Add oil, simmer and stir well.